Day Forty Five : Mellifluous

Mellifluous

Definition

1 : having a smooth rich flow

2 : filled with something (such as honey) that sweetens

In Latin, mel means "honey" and fluere means "to flow." Those two linguistic components flow smoothly together in mellifluus (from Late Latin) and mellyfluous (from Middle English), the ancestors of mellifluous. The adjective these days typically applies to sound, as it has for centuries.

The bees were humming outside ominously. 

I was peering at them suspiciously through our net curtains (don't judge, they came with the house and by the time I was finished paying the relocation costs, there was definitely not enough left over for purchasing something as luxurious as curtains - especially when I was still sleeping on an old mattress on the floor.)

My most recent housemate strolled into the room and stopped when she saw me crouching by the windowsill. 

"Ummmm."

"The bees are behaving weirdly." I informed them. 

"They're not the only ones." 

I just shrugged. So far, this roommate had lasted a lot longer than any other that had applied, drawn by the prime location and suspiciously cheap rent (rent that I had to keep lowering after every run away tenant, almost to the point where it seemed pointless to have a tenant at all.)

My current roommate was on the blacklist for every housing association going - mostly due to their rather extravagant party going nature which led them to return (loudly) to the house in the wee small hours of the morning, completely high, usually also wasted and more often than not dragging some poor unfortunate individual with them for a late night/ early morning shag. 

They also had a reputation for completely trashing the houses they lived in by holding wild out of control parties where the police were often summoned at some point. Building contractors and interior designers loved them. 

However, this was never a problem for me seeing as nobody wanted to come to my house anyway. Ever.  The only reason they ever managed to bring someone home was because they were too drunk to notice what house they were entering, and as soon as they did sober up, the bolted right away - on one memorable occasion, sans clothes. 

I had thought the lack of parties/sex partners who would actually stay the night and make them a cup of tea in the morning would put them off, but if anything it just seemed to amuse them. When I asked if it bothered them, they just shrugged and said that they could always go back to the other person's place if they were desperate and in any case, it was quite nice to come back to a clean house that wasn't trashed, flooded, burnt or a current crime scene. Plus if they wanted a cup of tea they could always get me to make them one - and they'd held out their empty mug with a grin.

I'd made them one. I was that grateful for them for staying, I would have put up with a damn sight more than that. None of the other tenants had lasted more than two months max - if I was lucky and they were pretty tough. Most fled after the first month, the first week, heck, even the first night once. Over time they got paler and twitchier, jumping at every sound, avoiding looking in the mirrors, putting all the lights on in the house 24/7.

Which, of course, just made the demons and ghosts mess with them more. 

So they left. Which left me totally in the lurch when it came to keeping a roof over my head and my stomach fed. 

So yeah, if my roommate wanted a cup of tea, they damn well got a cup of tea. 

I sighed. The humming from the bees was definitely working up to some sort of crescendo. which, of course, heralded nothing good in my experience. 

"If you're that worried, why not ask one of the spooks?" my roommate asked. "Some of them are so old, they probably know everything there is about all the random weirdness that goes on around here."

"You know if I start acknowledging them, they're only gone to play up even more." I, admittedly, whined.  

They shrugged. "Then don't. But they act up whatever you do, so you might as well make use of them."

This was true. They were shits either way. 

To explain, my dear, lovely old Great Aunt Rose whose existence I had never even heard of until she died, had left me a darling little house in the wilds of the north which was all mine, no inheritance tax or anything to pay, as long as I lived in the property and took care of her collection for at least seven years. 

As a graduate student in a city full of other graduate students who were also looking for jobs and had graduated with much shinier and newer degrees than me - and with the cost of living there being so insanely high, I needed all the help I could get. So of course when an opportunity that seemed almost too good to be true came along, like an idiot I jumped in head first. 

It had taken all my meager savings to relocate to the other side of the country. Luckily my boss had agreed to let me work remotely (as an IT nerd, all my coding and whatnot could easily be done in my home ground - the internet), albeit with a small pay cut to my already small salary so I could afford the basics. Just about. Barely. (hence the need for rent paying roommates).

But my own house! Out in the country! Fresh air, nature, good living and all that jazz. Plus it was on the outskirts of a tiny little village, as well as being within easy driving distance of a large town with a busy nightlife and cultural scene. Perfect. Definitely, too good to be true. 

The first day I moved into the property (which, to be fair, was a sturdy little house with all new electrics and heating with no major renovations required. In this respect my Great Aunt Rose had been scrupulous honest. In this respect), every single person I met that day informed me that the place was cursed. from the postman who refused to go further than the front garden gate, to the lady in the small Co-Op went I went to buy milk and bread, to the woman at the Post Office to the man at the bank when I updated my change of address. Even a random stranger who was just walking past when I entered the front gate. 

Every single one of them.

I told myself it was just some sort of hazing ritual for the new big city girl in the village, but I couldn't deny that i felt deeply unsettled by the whole thing. 

And then, when I was unpacking my stuff, I discovered the 'legacy' my Great Aunt had left me. 

Apparently, she was indeed an avid collector, as stated in her Will. However, I really should have asked them to clarify what she was an avid collector of.

Turns out, she loved to collect cursed items. 

The reason why the house was in such good condition? The items she had brought into the house were so cursed, that they had to be stored in a special way, otherwise the environment around them would also become cursed and would have a severe negative impact on the people exposed to it.  Therefore, she had the entire house redesigned into some sort of cleansing ghost trap. 

(I had to admit I did appreciate the underfloor heating).

Even then, I could have written it off as the delusions of a lonely old lady, except for the fact that, well...

The house really was haunted. 

Strange shadows appeared on the wall with nothing there to cast them. Doors frequently locked, unlocked and opened themselves, the face staring back at me in the mirror usually wasn't my own (I gave up on trying to apply make up after a week or two), there was a multitude of creaks, bumps, thumps and ghostly whispering as soon as the sun went down in every part of the house (seriously unsettling when you were trying to have a private moment on the toilet) and the taps frequently ran with blood. Strange figures often loomed over me while I lay in bed or tried to pull the covers from me as I slept. Nothing was every where I left it and one of them kept stealing my socks. 

So you can see why I had trouble keeping tenants. 

You might even be wondering why the hell I stayed there. Indeed, many a time i had found myself wondering why I was still here. 

However, I had central heating - and although I still had to pay the bills and upkeep, the house itself was paid for. I was living in a free, detached house with gas central heating, double glazing and underfloor heating. 

In one of the scummy flats i had rented before, it had gotten sol cold that i'd gone to bed wearing two jumpers, three sets of socks, two pairs of gloves and a woolly hat. the condiments in the cupboard had become filled with ice crystals, it was so cold. I couldn't even afford to run the useless electric heating because it was too expensive. 

What were a few ghosts when compared to your fingernails turning blue from early onset hypothermia. And having to choose between a tin of beans for sinner or some new shampoo that wasn't washing up liquid. 

Besides, it wasn't like the ghosts or demonic entities actually ever hurt me. It was more like they'd become bored being trapped in the house for god knows how long (I was never letting them loose, that was for sure) and so liked to prank people as a way to pass the time. Which, as the prankee, I wasn't too fond of, but at least I kind of understood where they were coming from. 
The only time they really lost their shit was when I thought to recruit a tenant from the a local supernatural, ghost investigation group (on the basis that he wouldn't scare easily and should be used to this kind of stuff) and he'd spent the entire day he moved in telling me that all the stuff my aunt had got was basic tourist crap, none of it was legitimate and clearly everyone who thought this place was cursed was either a gullible fool or having a nervous breakdown. 

He was the one who hadn't even lasted a night. I can't say I was too unhappy about that. 

The bees outside reached their humming crescendo, the buzzing so loud that I could feel the vibration through my teeth. 

We peered out the window with bated breath, the bees swirling above a patch of ground like some sort of crazy living waves crashing in a storm. 

The ground below moved. A white bone suddenly shoved through the surface. 

"Oh shit!" I hissed. 

Using small, incremental movements, the bones moved forwards, dragging and wiggling out of the earth, until only one leg remained trapped. It pulled on it pathetically, it's tiny rib cage clearly heaving with the effort. When it still couldn't get free, it flopped on the ground, disheartened. 

"What....is that?" My room mate asked doubtfully.

"I think, I think it's an animal skeleton?" I said doubtfully. "Maybe a cat or small dog?"

"I can see that, why's it suddenly moving?"

I shrugged. "The house?"

"You can't blame this place for everything."

"For wars and third world hunger? No, obviously not. But for the animated skeletal corpse of a dog or cat buried in my front garden, then yeah. Totally the house."

They shrugged. "What are you going to do? postman's going to be here in a minute and he'll totally clock that."

"And then everyone will know." I finished.

"Pitchforks and flaming torches at dawn." They said cheerfully. 

I suspected this was true. We'd avoided being chased out of town by the simple fact that no outsider could actually completely 100% prove the house was cursed, but I was pretty sure that a walking skeleton in the garden would pretty much be all the evidence they'd need. 

And the Residents Association here was savage. 

"Shit." I said again and dashed out the front door. Trying very, very very, hard to not think about what I was doing, I dug out the rest of the leg, grabbed the creature and brought it indoors. 

I plonked it on the kitchen table, where it trotted about happily, tail waving nineteen to the dozen and getting grave dirt all over the table. 

"I'm guessing tiny dog." my roommate pronounced. 

"What makes you so sure?" I asked. 

"Cats are way more chill. And way less friendly on first encounter. You only get that kind of hopeless trust from a dog." they cleared their throat. "I'll prove it. Sit boy!"

The skeleton dog sat. 

"See?"

"What am I going to do with it? Rebury it? Call an exorcist?"

My roommate scowled. "Bury the little thing when it's worked so hard to dig its way out? Don't be mean." They picked up the dog and cuddled it to their chest. "Besides, I've always wanted a dog."

"You can't be serious?"

"Why not? It's perfect - doesn't shed and you don't need to feed it and so you don't need to clean up its shit. Plus, it's totally cute."

"Doesn't shed huh?" I said, glaring at the dirt going everywhere. 

they rolled there eyes. "Hang on a minute." they stalked off and i heard the sound of the sink running. "Good boy, good boy."

After a few minutes they came back with the bones wrapped in my clean towel and a toothbrush int heir hand which they were using to get the last of the dirt out from between the joints.

"Is that my toothbrush?"

"I already told you that you need to get a new one. Dental hygiene is important so you need to change them regularly, otherwise it's just gross." She finished buffing him up. "Isn't he just darling."

I had to admit, he did look a lot better with the mud off - and it was pretty cute how excited and happy he seemed. 

"I'm going to call him Sparkles."They said definitively. 

"What? Why? He's not even sparkly!" 

I paused. 

"And I have't even said we're keeping him."

"Of course we are, don't bother arguing because you know i'm going to win." They paused. "And he will be sparkly once I put this glitter on him!" They said, triumphantly holding up a bottle of, you guessed it, sparkling glitter glue. 

"No."

"But he'll look fabulous!"

"No."

"People paint and dye their pets all the time."

"Bad people. People who get reported to the RSPCA. No."

"Fine." They pouted, then looked at me slyly. "But we are keeping him right."

I sighed. "Yeeeeeeesss."